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70 Years & Still Quacking: An Anniversary Look at Donald Duck
And yet, he's also the personification of the gutsy never-give-up spirit of the pioneer, of the entrepreneur, of the working man, of the tired parents and of frustrated kids. From his rather inauspicious debut inthe Silly Symphony short cartoon The Wise Little Hen, he has emerged to be one of the most collected, most documented comic characters in history. If one hops on the internet, a Google search on the name Donald Duck brings back something like 977,000 possible websites to check out. Even discounting 95% of them, one is still faced with 48,850 web pages to scan for information about Walt Disney's 70-year-old fireball. All month long we've been covering Donald's 70th anniversary, but with so much written, it's a hard task to say something new about the character. It's even more difficult to say something new that is not merely conjecture, opinion, or a recitation of urban legend. With that in mind, J.C. Vaughn, Executive Editor of Gemstone Publishing, talked with John K. Snyder, Jr., President of Diamond International Galleries, one of the character's foremost collectors, with more than 1,000 Donald Duck items in his collection, for a fresh perspective. SCOOP: The name Donald Duck popped up in Disney history before the character showed up. Where did that happen? John K. Snyder, Jr.: Donald was first mentioned in The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, a book published by David McKay in 1931. He was mentioned for a second time in Mickey Mouse Annual #3, published by Dean & Son of London in 1932. There was a picture of a duck in both books that is not distinctly what we would recognize as Donald. Whether or not this was intended to be him at the time is anyone's guess. In the Annual he even has black feathers. SCOOP: When did the ”real” Donald first appear, and when did he take on the look of the feisty Donald character we recognize today? JKS: Donald made his definitive first appearance in one of the Silly Symphony series, The Wise Little Hen, released June 9, 1934. In that movie short, he was sort of shiftless or just out for a good time. It wasn't the angry or frustrated personality that people came to know him as later. He also wore a sort of French-looking sailor cap in that film. In a cultural view, it's probably notable that he wore a yachting-type sailor suit, not a Navy uniform. Orphan's Benefit, Donald's second appearance on screen, debuted August 11, 1934. In addition to the more familiar sailor's cap, Donald displayed some of his trademark aggravation. In a scene where he tried unsuccessfully to recite “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” circumstances and misperceptions lead Donald to become increasingly agitated, leading to some of the film's best laughs. Of course many laughs were generated by Clarence “Ducky” Nash's voice for Donald, too, and the familiar aggravated look was developed by Dick Lundy, one of Disney's animators, and another noteworthy item is that this was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon in which Donald had a supporting role. At that point, Donald was the classic second tier character. He basically was an enlivened foil for Mickey, as seen in The Band Concert, the first standard form color Mickey Mouse cartoon from Disney. Mickey is trying to conduct the concert and no matter how many of Donald's flutes he takes, breaks or throws away, Donald comes up with another. An interesting note about that is that it's Donald who's doing the frustrating in this musical skit, whereas it might have been Mickey himself just a few years earlier. SCOOP: How did Donald first appear in newspapers? JKS: An adaptation of The Wise Little Hen appeared in the Silly Symphony Sunday newspaper strip beginning September 16, 1934. The story was serialized over fourteen installments. Then from February 10, 1935 to April 19, 1936, Donald became a frequent costar in Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse daily and Sunday strip. After a short break, Donald returned to the Silly Symphony Sunday page as its star, headlining from August 30, 1936 to December 5, 1937. Original art from this run is incredibly rare; in fact, I am aware of only seven extant pieces. Donald next got his own daily strip on February 7, 1938, and his own permanent Sunday page started on December 10, 1939. Al Taliaferro became famous for drawing the Donald strips, and did so until he died in 1969. SCOOP: When did Donald start to become a force in licensed paper products? JKS: The Wise Little Hen hardcover storybook with dust jacket appeared in 1934 (and was reprinted in 1935), and it did feature Donald on the cover. Donald first appeared in Mickey Mouse Magazine on the front and back cover of volume 2, issue #5, which was a giveaway in March 1935. That was the second volume of the earlier, smaller series of Mickey Mouse Magazine, which were dairy giveaways. Donald also appeared on the Summer debut issue of the larger Mickey Mouse Magazine in 1935. He showed up in a self-titled linen book that summer. The Wise Little Hen was also published as a linen book, in 1937. Grossett & Dunlap also published a Donald Duck book in 1936, which sold for 50¢. The standee promoting this book, the earliest known promotional item for a Donald book, recently sold in the Hake's Americana & Collectibles auction. Walt Disney's Donald Duck, a no-number black and white comic book featuring Donald with a bubble pipe on the cover, was produced in 1938. The material included in it was reprinted from the Sunday strips from 1936-37. It included the October 17, 1937 strip with the first appearances of Huey, Dewey & Louie, Donald's nephews, who were the children of Donald's unseen sister, Della. Four Color Comics #4, and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #1, both of which featured Donald on the cover, are fairly obvious choices as important developments in the comic book format in 1940 because they do reveal the character's increasing popularity and his importance to Disney at the time. SCOOP: What do you think set the groundwork for Donald's success? JKS: Mickey Mouse was already a staggering success by the time Donald arrived on the scene. In our current area, with its hyper media awareness, it might be difficult to fully put ourselves in the shoes of the people in 1928 and on into the Great Depression, but try to imagine it. Mickey debuted in 1928. The Depression hit at the end of '29 and it created a serious need for cheap entertainment, for escapism. The timing is so providential that you might even call it “fate.” Never before in so few years had a character moved so quickly into all the various categories of merchandise. Toys, food products, the cartoons themselves, you name it and Mickey Mouse was on it. In 1935, Disney told Time that he was testing characters, looking for audience reaction to Donald and others, to see if they had staying power or appeal to the audience. Everything was being measured against Mickey's success. SCOOP: It would seem that with that attitude perhaps Donald would have been held back a bit, like saying, “If you're not number one, why bother?” or something along those lines. Was that the case? JKS: The simple answer is probably “yes.” It makes sense, though. The Brownies had really pioneered licensing, and Felix the Cat would have been a relatively recent success in the minds of Disney's people, particularly Kay Kamen, who is the one who jumpstarted the Disney licensing model. At one point, for instance, he had over 50 major department stores using Mickey as their Christmas theme for all of their toy departments. If there were that many major brand stores these days, can you imagine getting all of them to agree on something like that? So, yes, of course there was a lot invested in Mickey Mouse. Donald, at least at first, was an unknown quantity. He's certainly something of an everyman, but here was Mickey with his plucky spirit and positive attitude, and he wasn't something that parents had to be concerned about their kids seeing. Also, don't discount the importance of Mickey's momentum. In terms of dominance, the period of 1928 to 1938 was his golden age. The licensees wanted Mickey. The Mickey Mouse Club organization also really pumped up the demand for the character. Donald's popularity did start to grow. As early as 1935, Donald was a balloon in Macy's parade, and 1936 saw the Victor Young orchestra recording a hit dance tune about Donald (Decca disc 3285). It wasn't all smooth sailing once Donald got going in licensing, though. The 1939 Ingersoll pocket watch didn't sell well until an embossed Mickey was placed on the back of the watch, and the angry-faced Donald toys created by Fisher Price for toddlers as Easter toys in 1936 and 1937 didn't go over well either. It scared the kids and thereafter the toys featured the traditional happy face Donald. SCOOP: To digress for moment, a lot of people, even serious collectors, might not know the name Kay Kamen and why he was so important. What should they know? JKS: Well, there have been a number of great pieces written about Kamen, but his first big success was with products featuring the Our Gang characters. He also launched the Tim Club, which became the Superman-Tim Club later on, as a marketing effort for clothing manufacturers and retailers. He teamed up with Walt Disney in what was truly an unprecedented move. On any licensing they did, Disney and Kamen split the first $100,000 in profits 60/40, respectively. Then everything else was split 50/50. Can you imagine how quickly he became a multi-millionaire? If you take Felix the Cat as a road map, he improved on that map and got Mickey Mouse and Disney characters about everywhere you would think to look. Unfortunately Kamen died in a plane crash in 1949. SCOOP: What type of products did Kamen license? JKS: In addition to toys, you had bread, milk, orange juice and other products. If you look at the history of successful marketing with characters, you'll find very often that the ones that have made it to the level of pop culture icon have been involved with the basics of milk, bread, beverages, candy, cereal or the other staples. SCOOP: Going back to Donald specifically, when did he begin to emerge as an important character and why? JKS: His personality had a lot to do with it, but again it's difficult to ignore the timing of his ascension at Disney. During World War II, Donald was the number one character on planes and patches worn by service men. Again, this goes back to his attitude. It's probably difficult for most people to imagine Mickey getting riled up enough to fight. Not so with Donald Duck. In fact, after Orphan's Benefit, it was pretty easy to visualize Donald getting mad concerning just about anything. His personality continued to emerge as feisty, even angry. SCOOP: Donald also changed physically in a couple ways as the character evolved, didn't he? JKS: Sure. Most serious collectors will spot the longer bill on the early Donald right away. It's a common way of identifying the earlier works even if one isn't familiar with the particular piece or story. What a lot of folks don't necessarily know, though, is that he didn't have hands right away. He used to have wings in place of hands. His appearance in The Wise Little Hen best illustrates this. Take a look and notice that Donald is really using three layers of feathers as fingers. He was only given real four-fingered hands in 1936. So, while his bill continued to be modified up until 1938, the end of 1935 was also the end of Donald's feather fingers. Orphan's Picnic (February 1936) was the first animated film where he consistently had four-fingered hands. SCOOP: Donald's popularity continued to grow after the war, while other wartime comics niches like superheroes were on the decline. Why was that? JKS: When the dads came home from the war, they had been instilled with a fairly strict sense of order. “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” was the call of the day. Much of the freedom we have today proceeds from the combined relative abundance of capital and free time and the immediacy of our media. In those days, rarely did those factors apply. Credit cards didn't exist yet. People just didn't buy things they couldn't afford. If you can imagine that, then it's not a big step to imagine that rebellion wasn't really tolerated. In a way, Donald represented something kids of the '40s and '50s couldn't get away with. SCOOP: Any other factors? JKS: In terms of storytelling, it's difficult to overstate the importance of Carl Barks. His comic book work has had just about every positive adjective possible thrown at it, but maybe the best is “timeless”. That's why so many of his stories can be reprinted today and still seem so fresh for new audiences. A great deal of credit goes to Another Rainbow and Bruce Hamilton for the wonderful job they did in reprinting and producing this material. SCOOP: Did you discover Donald during that period? JKS: Yes. I knew the character, of course, but I hadn't read any Donald Duck comics before “Sheriff of Bullet Valley,” which was a great story in Four Color #199. Practically every kid I knew had cap guns and loved westerns, and here was a DonaldDuck story with a western theme. It was a great fit. And I can still remember so vividly, almost impossibly so, the feeling I had when it looked like Donald had been shot in that issue. You had to turn the page to find out the bullets bounced off his badge, but I remember almost not being able to turn it because I thought they had killed him... SCOOP: And that story came out in 1948? JKS: Yes, and I was five years old. SCOOP: What was the next step for you? JKS: In 1950, the first time I ever sold and bought back issue comics, I found a store that sold old comics for 5¢ and bought them for 2¢. I saw comics I had never seen before, characters I vaguely recognized or didn't know. They had a Superman #6, for instance. I picked up Four Color #62, the “Frozen Gold” story, which had come out in 1945. I also took in 65 comics and got $1.30 for them. I was seven years old then and I had never made that much money on my own. I really liked that feeling. SCOOP: Where did your Donald Duck collecting go from there? JKS: July 14, 1974 I went to the Wheaton Armory Comic Book Convention in Silver Spring, Maryland. I met two dealers who were set up there, Walt Zimmerli and Steve Geppi. They both loved Disney comics and in particular the work of Carl Barks. I talked to Walt first, but he got busy with customers and I ended up talking to Steve. I told him that “Frozen Gold” was a book I wouldn't mind investing in. He said he thought he could come up with one. The following Thursday he had two of them for me. I picked them up on Friday and told him that was enough for the moment...but I started collecting comics seriously from that point. SCOOP: As someone who was there, how did you see the back issue market developing back then? JKS: By the mid-70s, at least 10 of the top 100 books featured Donald on the cover or in the stories. These included Four Color #4, Four Color #9, Four Color #29, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #1, the Kite Giveaway (”Donald Duck Tells About Kites”), March of Comics #4, March of Comics #20, March of Comics #41, Black & White #16, and Black & White #20. I would also say that the initial “Bubble Pipe” one-shot comic was probably just off the edge of that list. With the high profile focus on superhero comics these days, and with a quarter century more of comics added to the mix, it's a testament to the power of the Disney characters that Four Color #4 and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #1 are still in the Top 100 comics today. As the awareness of their history continues to increase, it would not be at all surprising to see some of the others work their way back onto the list as well. SCOOP: Were the other areas of comic character collectibles keeping up with comics during this time? JKS: Yes, Hake's Americana & Collectibles was already established in the business and experienced collector-dealers such as Malcom Willits, Harry Matetsky, Howard Bayliss, Russ Cochran, Bruce Hamilton, Leonard Brown, Richard Olson, Rex Miller, Jim Harmon, Bill Campbell, Jack Melcher and Don Phelps were already calling attention to radio, movie and newspaper memorabilia. Remember, though, the collectors who loved comics best could really concentrate on them because they were very affordable compared to today's prices. SCOOP: As someone who has devoted a lot of effort to collecting this character, is it fun to play a part in bringing him back into the comic book world now that Gemstone is publishing the Disney comics? JKS: It's great, and all the credit for that goes to Steve Geppi. For a long time now he's seen the decline in the number of comics suitable for children as a real problem not just for the moment, but for the future of our business and our hobby. Happy Anniversary, Donald!
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